


crossing lines, flying blind

by ofhobbitsandwomen (litvirg)



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, backpacking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 17:43:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8455843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/litvirg/pseuds/ofhobbitsandwomen
Summary: After the death of her brother, Robb, Sansa decides to take his place and hike the Appalachian Trail alone. Down the path, she runs into a far more seasoned hiker.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from the song Looking Out by Brandi Carlile

**May.**

**_Home._ **

She thought of the shiny, black gown hanging in the closet of her apartment, the tasseled cap tucked on the shelf above it, untouched. A small duffel bag rolled around the back of her father’s car, sliding back and forth, a soft _thump_ coming from behind her every time they took a sharp turn. 

He hadn’t turned the radio on when she got in the car and she hadn’t tried to fill the silence. They let the air be filled with every _thump_ of the bag, and the wind howling from outside the windows. 

She’d had to skip the ceremony. 

Not that it mattered. Because it didn’t. Not with the memory of her mother’s voice over the phone when she called to tell her what happened, hanging in the air. 

“ _There’s been an accident,_ ” she’d said. Her mother’s voice had never sounded so thin. Strong, Catelyn Stark never wavered. “ _Your brother, Robb, he’s…_ ”

His car was totaled. He’d been on his way to see his girlfriend. A car had come out of nowhere, smashed into the driver’s side door, and he hadn’t made it through the night at the hospital. 

So it didn’t matter that the gown was hanging up in her closet, unused, something for her to throw away when she got back. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t had time to figure out who she was supposed to tell, that they would call her name and she just wouldn’t be there to walk across the stage. It didn’t matter that it was going to be a nightmare of phone calls later to sort it all out. 

Robb was gone and none of it mattered. 

It was a relief when they got to town. Slow streets with signs she recognized. Neighbors she hadn’t seen for years who still stopped to wave as their car drove by. It was easier to let a breath out knowing they’d be pulling into the driveway in just a few minutes and she could jump out of the car and figure out what came next from there. 

Her duffle felt oddly light in her hand as she walked up the steps of the porch, across the foyer to the staircase. Arya’s door was closed when she walked by, the light peeking out from under the door. She let her fingers rest on the handle. Tentative, wondering if she should go in. 

She’d never been good at the whole thing. The sister thing. Didn’t know if she could just walk in. If sisters were allowed to do that. She thought they ought to be, when something like this happened. Forget knocking, just walk in and give her sister a hug. She was about to push down on the handle when she heard footsteps shuffle their way over to the door, shadows casted out into the hall. Then the click of the lock sounded from the other side. 

Bran was waiting for her at her door, though. Much better at the brother thing than she was at the sister thing. He looked pale and much much older than she remembered him being the last time she saw him. 

“It’s nice to see you back home, Sansa” he said. 

She dropped her bag on the soft pink carpet in her room and pulled him in for a hug. 

“Yeah,” she said. “Nice.” 

***

Her home had never felt so strange as the days before the funeral. 

Her room was a warm, soft cage. One she was afraid to leave, to wander outside the light walls and cozy blankets, down to whatever was waiting outside. But staying in it made her chest feel tight, like every breath was short and sharp and poking at her ribs. Like she should have been outside the room, with her family. 

It had just been so long. She’d almost never come home while she was at school. Only at Christmas, and even then most of the time was spent out with other friends, shopping, getting drinks, seeing movies. Passing the winter time away with something to distract them from how cold it was while she longed for her school in the south. 

When she did wander out she’d see her mother sitting, small, at the kitchen table and it was enough to make her heart lurch. Catelyn Stark was no small woman. Sansa couldn’t remember a time in her life when her mother had ever looked so sunken in on herself. 

Even her arms felt smaller when they wrapped around Sansa for a hug, holding tighter than before, but still feeling thin and frail in a way they never had. 

She’d see Bran and Rickon trying to make the rooms softer, the air light and easy for everyone to breathe. Both too young. Too young to have to take care of the rest of them as they dealt with it. Their mom shocked and small, Ned vacant, and Arya angry. 

So, so angry. Arya always seemed angry to Sansa, always filled with a harsher kind of fire than she could ever rile up in herself, but it was different. She was mad and she was mad at all of them, and she was mad at the house and the woods and the dogs and the sky. Anything she saw, she scowled at, like she couldn’t believe anything had the nerve to look the same when she felt so different. 

So Sansa stayed in her room, silent, wondering, hopeless. 

***

 _I’ve never seen these people before,_ she thought. 

She was swarmed by a sea of black, her shoes sinking into the soft dirt while a man--a pastor or a priest or someone, she had never learned the title of--talked about him. How great Robb was while he was alive. How gentle and kind and brave and generous. And she looked around and even as she stared at them she wondered where her family was. 

_How long have I been standing just outside my own life?_ She wondered. _Outside my own family?_

Her cheeks stayed dry, but her throat felt tight. She didn’t know these people. It had been too long and she’d stayed too far away. When was the last time she’d seen Robb? When was the last time either of them had actually made it to their weekly phone call? Did she even have any recent pictures of him saved on her phone?

 _How far away from them did I get?_ She pressed her toe on top of a small stone, pushing it down into the ground below her feet. _Can I get back?_

***

His room was just more evidence. More evidence that he was her brother and a stranger all the same. 

Posters of bands she didn’t recognize, piles of movies she’d never heard of, pictures with friends she’d never met. She was half tempted to grab the journal from his bedside table and flip through it. See if her name ever popped up. If there was ever anything good that followed. 

Then she would always feel guilty. Because it wasn’t about her, she wasn’t the one something terrible happened to. That was Robb. And her parents. She had no right to step back into her absent life and make it all about her. Not when she’d never felt the urge to step into his room until that day, dressed in black, knowing full well she wouldn’t find him there. 

She pressed her finger on the edge of the notebook and tipped it into the trash can below. 

Those were Robb’s thoughts. If he’d wanted to share them he would have. She could give him one last bit of privacy before the remainders from his life were sorted through and dealt with by everyone else. 

She paused when she got to a stack of books on his desk. 

_A Guide to Hiking the Appalachian Trail._

_Backpacking for Beginners._

_A Beginners Guide to the AT._

They were filled with post its and scribbles, and highlighter ink making pages scream out at her in orange and pink and yellow. 

“He was going to hike it,” a voice came from behind her. She turned around to see Bran in the doorway. “Been planning it for months.” He nodded toward the closet and she walked over and opened it to find boxes of gear stacked up, unopened, next to a new backpack and a pair of hiking boots. 

“When?” she asked. 

Bran shrugged. “Started planning a while ago. We weren’t sure if he was really going to do it until he started buying all the gear.” 

She wondered why he wanted to do it. Why anyone would want to do it. Spend months on a trail with no hot water or electricity or contact with anyone else. Another thing she hadn’t known about her brother, another thing she’d never get to ask him or find out or understand. 

She dropped down onto his bed, one of the books still in her hand. The title of the chapter looked back up at her. 

_So, why hike the Appalachian Trail?_ It asked her. 

_Yes_ , she thought. _Why_. 

***

It was a decision made from lack of sleep and too much coffee. 

She woke up at 4am, the stillness of the house still unsettling her, so she wandered down to the kitchen, one of Robb’s books in hand, and made a pot, listening to it brew behind her as she flipped through the pages. 

It was three cups in when it started sounding like a good idea. 

Before that it had been wonder and confusion. A hike from one end of the country to another seemed like nonsense, a crazy pointless idea. Why walk that far when you could drive or hop on a train or fly. She imagined Robb on the trail, covered in dirt, smiling at every tree and pond and mountain he passed, and she wondered what it was he always liked about the woods. Why he felt so at home there. 

She imagined herself in his place. 

She saw herself standing there in cargo shorts and one of those button down plaid shirts, thick gray socks pulled over the tops of her hiking boots, sticky, sweaty hair falling tightly against her forehead and neck. 

It wasn’t a version of herself she’d ever seen. 

She could imagine walking down a trail, smelling the warm musty breeze between the trees, hearing the scuttle of leaves through branches, a creek or a river not far off. It wasn’t a bad thought. 

Then she thought of sleeping on the ground, only a thin slip of fabric between her and the dirt and suddenly it didn’t seem so romantic. 

She poured another cup of coffee. 

It was beautiful, there was no denying it. The pictures filling the pages should have covered walls, so you could stand beside them and feel like you were stepping right into it all. Robb would have loved it. He would have stood in the woods and looked like he was supposed to be there. The picture almost looked absent without him, like there was something missing. 

Sansa didn’t know what it was about him, about how he fit, why he loved it. She’d never felt that way, not about anywhere. Her school had come close, somewhere she could slot herself in naturally without anyone thinking twice about it. But the air didn’t fold around her skin like it was meant to, like she was a part of it the way it had always happened around Robb. 

The sun was coming up, giving the kitchen a warm red glow when she drained the rest of the pot into her mug. 

Maybe…

She stirred another spoonful of sugar in. The spoon clinking against the side of the mug seemed so loud, she wondered how she didn’t wake up everyone else in the house. 

She didn’t know her brother. 

It was too late for her to finally realize it, but the proof was there, sitting beside her on the counter, slamming into her so hard she couldn’t focus on anything else. She didn’t know him, she didn’t know why he’d want to hike something like that and now, now it was too late to ask him. 

Maybe if she’d come home more she’d have known him better. Maybe if she hadn’t gotten so caught up in school and life in the south she could have recognized some bit of herself in the leftovers from her brother’s life. But she didn’t. And it was too late to try and work backwards, to try and find some scrap of something that resembled her in what he left behind. 

She couldn’t fix the hole she’d found. 

But maybe. 

Maybe she could figure it out. What he felt when he thought of the woods, what he wanted to get from them. Maybe she could step into it and finally find Robb for herself so she wouldn’t have to stick around and hear people describing how good he was to her for the next six months. 

Maybe it was crazy. 

She stared at the kitchen, the clock on the stove flashing, letting her know it wasn’t even six in the morning yet. 

She flipped open to the first chapter. 

_Planning Your Hike_. 

***

“You’re being selfish.”

Sansa let the loud _zip_ of the backpack answer Arya. She didn’t turn around to look at her, just shook her head and looked for her hiking boots. 

“Mom needs you here,” Arya carried on. 

“To do what?” Sansa asked her. 

Arya just rolled her eyes in response and crossed her arms over her chest. 

It had been like that ever since Sansa had told her. She’d laughed in Sansa’s face the first time she’d brought it up, like she was kidding. When she’d realized Sansa was serious she’d laughed even harder. She’d change her mind in a couple of days, Arya told her. Once she’d read about where she’d have to take a shit. 

But Sansa hadn’t. She kept reading and shopping and packing. She registered her hike. She’d planned her stopping points, where she’d restock her pack. And then she was about to go and Arya suddenly had too much to say. 

“Going on this stupid hike won’t solve anything,” she told her. “You’re going to go and get covered in dirt and hate it, and when you come back Robb’s still going to be dead.”

Her voice was icy cold and she wouldn’t meet Sansa’s eyes. Sansa never wanted to reach out and hug her sister more. 

_Robb’s dead_ , she wanted to cry. _He’s dead and I miss him and it’s not fair. I didn’t even know my own brother. It’s not fair_. 

But Arya would shift away from her hands any time she tried. She’d see her turn away from everyone to swat at her eyes when she thought they weren’t looking. But anytime they were close, when she thought maybe they’d open the dam, take a crack at the wall between them, Arya turned back to anger. 

“Robb would be happy I’m doing this,” she said, weakly. 

Arya scoffed, looking away. Her cheeks were red and her eyes were nearly closed. 

“You didn’t even know him.”

It was true. It was what she’d been thinking since she’d come home before her graduation. It was why she was leaving, why she was going to try to find him on some godforsaken hike she never would have tried if he was still there. 

But to hear it out loud was a swift punch to the gut and it took her a moment to get enough air back in her lungs to respond. 

“He was my brother as much as yours.”

***

 **June**. 

_**Maine.**_

The first moment, the first step on the trail felt like she was dreaming. She basked in the feel of the cool breeze around her, the sound of the wind cutting through the trees, the feel of the dirt beneath her feet. Her boot pressed into the ground below her and she thought maybe she’d get tied down to the earth below her with every step. 

If she could see herself, standing there on the trail she might even think she belonged. Her new boots scuffed at the toe with a light layer of dirt, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, backpack hiked up behind her. 

The air smelled sweeter, she noticed. Sweeter than back home, sweeter than the air at school. Like it wasn’t cutting so roughly into her, but flowing in, easing into her lungs one breath at a time. 

She reached out and let her hand rest against the rough bark of a tree to her left. Breathed, in and out. 

“Okay,” she said. It would be fine. She’d get on the trail and she’d be alright. She’d walk it until she found something. Found the reason to walk it, found Robb, found anything at all. In and out. “Okay.” 

***

She’d had no idea her body could be so tired. Or that she could be so overwhelmingly bored. Or that Maine seemed to just be one giant slope upwards. 

She’d hadn’t thought about what it actually meant, hiking from one end of the country to the other. Hiking, Sansa learned, was just walking. For hours. And backpacking was just walking with deadweight on your back. 

It was something she should have considered, before taking it on. She never thought how much time she’d have to spend walking, everyday, all on her own. The sound of her footsteps crunching beneath her, setting a tempo that played round and round in her head. Left right, left right, left right… 

It was just walking. Exhausting, endless, tiring walking. Alone. 

She’d tried humming to herself in the beginning, something to pass the time but she’d forgotten the most of the words to the song stuck in her head, so it was one verse, over and over and over again. Looping endlessly around her brain in beat with her steps. And when she’d tried to think of something else, the sound of her footsteps would bring it back a few moments later. 

It played round and round in her head when she ran out of breath, too winded to sing. As she reached for trees to grab onto, to hoist herself up the slope a little further until she could stop, only to have to reach out and grapple for something else before she tipped backward. All the way backward, tumbling down and down and down until she was right back at the start, wondering if she could even do this. 

She needed a break, but she knew if she sat down or if she took her pack off she wouldn’t get back up. 

“One day,” she thought. “Not even a full day and I’m already too tired to go on.”

She thought maybe she could lean herself against a tree so she wouldn’t have to take the pack off. She could just push herself back off it when she was ready to go on, already standing so she wouldn’t have to worry about picking herself back up. 

It was a struggle, that morning, getting the pack on in the first place. She’d never had to carry anything heavier than a school backpack, especially not for so long. She’d tried setting it on top of a car and slipping in, squatting and deadlifting it up, trying to shoot her arms through before gravity yanked it back down. 

In the end she’d had to set it on the ground and sit down, looping her arms through the straps before pushing herself back up with it on. 

_Robb,_ she thought. _Was definitely crazy._

 _And I’m not going to make it through these godforsaken woods_. 

***

The tent was a nightmare. 

She hadn’t practiced before she’d packed it. She hadn’t thought it would be that hard--the box it came in had said it was just a few simple steps. 

But then she found herself panting and sweating, hair sticking to her forehead, dirt caked on her elbows and hands, and she thought maybe she should have at least watched a how-to video before she left. 

She used it the first night, and the second. Making sure to get far enough away from the trail that she wouldn’t be a disturbance to thru-hikers that passed her by as she slept--just like the book said. Close enough that she didn’t feel as lost in the mountains as she probably was. 

The third night she stayed in a lean-to off the side of the trail. Another girl was there, a few years older than her, with wild dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, the dirt on her skin looking more like makeup than accident. Seasoned and thrilled to be covered head to toe in crusty flecks of dirt and tiny red mosquito bites.

When she woke up though, the girl was gone. The still morning pressed in around her, birds and leaves and bugs filling the silent air, buzzing like an alarm waiting for her to get moving. 

***

Each day by nightfall, she would set up her tent, eat the disappointing scraps she called dinner, and lay back on the ground knowing she would abandon it all in the morning. It was a bedtime mantra she repeated every day, her arms tucked beneath her head, her eyes squeezed shut as tight as she could get them. 

_I’ll go home tomorrow_ , she’d say. 

_I tried_ , she thought. _Robb would have been proud of even that_. 

She’d think of Lady, running around the yard back home as she sat on the patio, a pitcher of lemonade in front of her, Arya splashing in the pool off to her side. She’d feel the sun on her skin as she laid down in her bikini, and then when she was too tired, she’d go inside and take a nap in her bed. She’d wake up to the smell of roast chicken or steak on the grill and she’d never have to wait long to fill her stomach after it growled. 

Then, in the morning, the sound of bugs buzzing around her, a flying zooming against the side of the canvas of her tent, she’d wake up and start it all over again. 

Slowly she’d pack it all away and put her boots back on and walk. Slower each day. 

“I’m never going to make it to Georgia,” she said.

Her feet were sore and bursting beneath the fabric of her boots. Every step aching and slow, each marker seeming further and further away. She’d thought she’d broken them in well enough back home, but two days into the trail the skin of her ankles was rubbed raw and red and broken, and it had only gotten worse from there. 

“Okay,” she said. Her breaths were big and huffing, separating her words in chunks. “Just a little farther, then you can stop for the night. Just a little bit. One step at a time.” 

Step, breath, break. Step, breath, break.

She heard a crackling in the distance, and a bout of laughter, and she wondered if she’d lept so deeply into solitude that she’d started to imagine companions on the trail. 

It got louder the closer she walked, and then just before the lean-to she was aching to lie down in, she saw a small group of campers--two men and a woman-- sitting around a fire, laughing and snacking. One of the men was turned around digging through his pack, obscuring his face from view.

The two others looked up as she got close, a branch snapping under her foot. 

“Um,” she said. “Hi.” 

“Hello,” the woman said. She had a small round face, a smile spread wide across it. Next to her sat a chubby man with short dark hair, and a few feet down from him, the other man sat. “I’m Gilly, this is Sam and this--”

She gestured to the other man, who had shifted back around, his dark curly hair pulled back into a bun, his dark eyes watching her curiously. She felt an odd breath catch in her throat. 

“Jon,” Sansa finished for her. “Yes, we’ve met before, actually.” 

***

“Sansa,” he said, surprised. “Uh, hi.” 

It had been years, she knew. Since she’d seen him last. She was barely a girl and he was running along with Robb and their cousin Theon, out in the yard, playing pretend. 

Completely different people than the two who stood there across from each other in this small patch of woods in Maine, but it was there. The shadow of a familiar face. The knowledge that they’d fallen out of each other’s lives and never bothered to fall back in. 

She wondered what he must think of her. His last memory of her must have been clouded in bubblegum pink and temper tantrums--covering her head to toe as she sat aside from all her siblings, playing with toys they didn’t care about, games they wouldn’t play with her. They’d all run around and get dirty and she’d turn her nose up at it--and at them, and stomp off to her room to be by herself. 

And then there she was, covered head to toe in more dirt than the rest of them combined had ever touched, her hair slicked tight by sweat against her head with little strands flying away, in front of Jon for the first time in years. 

She watched as he raked his eyes over her as she fidgeted, trying not to put too much weight on her feet, hoping that if she just kept still she could avoid scraping against her already burning blisters. 

“You two know each other?” Sam said, sounding delighted. “What a small world!” He reached for his pack and shoved it back behind where he sat, making room in their circle for her. “Sansa, was it?” 

She nodded, breaking away from Jon and looking back over to where Sam sat, waiting for her to answer. 

“Here,” he said, pointing to the open space. “Sit, join us.” 

“Um,” Sansa said, hesitant. She felt her feet ache and imagined the burst of release she would feel if she got off them. She glanced over at Jon. 

“Yeah,” he said. His voice was so much deeper than she remembered it. Gravelly and worn. “Yeah, of course, sit.” 

She let her backpack slip off and fall in a thud to the ground, hoping the groan of relief she felt wasn’t audible. She rested with her feet tipped to the side, the soles facing each other, all the weight resting instead on her calves. 

“How do you two know each other?” Sam asked, bring Sansa back to the moment. 

“Oh.” She paused. She didn’t know if Jon knew, about Robb. She didn’t know when the last time they’d talked was. Jon had dropped off the grid for a while, moved away, fell out of touch. He’d never even gotten a facebook. “We knew each other as kids. Before Jon moved away.” 

He was watching her with careful eyes, nodding in confirmation, but not looking at Sam. 

“Her family let me play in their mansion sometimes, as long as I’d washed all my fleas off.” 

He was smiling then, a small crooked smile, waiting and watching her. Testing to see just how different she was from the bratty little girl he’d known so long ago. 

“Well, after that first outbreak you brought, we couldn’t be too sure,” she teased right back. “Better safe than sorry, after all.” 

It was a moment before he laughed, but he did, low and short, before shaking his head. He turned back to Sam as he grabbed his drink. 

“Well, alright then.” 

***

They were professional hikers, the three of them. Not really, they didn’t get paid, but as far as she could tell from their stories, they’d lived more in the woods the last few years than in an actual home. They’d done just about every big hike in the US; the Pacific Crest Trail, the John Muir Trail, the Florida trail, the Arizona trail, the Hayduke Trail. It seemed all they really did was hike. 

“You picked a tough way to start,” Sam said. “Your first hike and you start the AT in Maine, not many people do that.” 

Gilly nodded. “And you were going to do it on your own.” 

“I didn’t really know much about what I was getting myself into,” Sansa admitted. “It was about as last minute as you can get with something like this.” 

They’d been surprised when she told them she’d never really hiked before. She thought it was probably fairly obvious from the way she held her pack like she wished it wasn’t really there or the way she walked on her toes to avoid scraping her ankles against her boots any further. 

She was embarassed but she hadn’t realized starting in Maine was starting at the hardest part of the trail. 

“First a mountain, then a hundred miles of wilderness without any resupply posts,” Sam had said. “Pretty infamous on the trail.” 

It felt less embarrassing to tell them after that, that she’d been barely making 8 miles a day. The girl she met at her first lean-to was clocking twenty. Maybe, she could tell herself then, if she’d started somewhere easier, she’d be doing better. 

“Why’d you decide to hike it?” Gilly asked her. 

Sansa played with the end of her ponytail, slipping her fingers in and out between her strands of hair. It was a band aid she was going to have to rip off sooner or later, so she took a breath and met her eye. 

“My brother died,” she said. Jon’s head lifted up in the corner of her eye, staring into the side of her head, waiting for her to turn and face him. “My older brother, Robb. I found all his plans for this trip in his room. And, I don’t know, I just thought I’d…” she trailed off. 

_Thought I’d give it a go? Thought I’d see if I could find him again? Thought I’d try and figure out who my brother actually was?_ She wasn’t sure any of those were appropriate campfire conversation. 

“It’s a nice way to honor his memory,” Gilly said, generously. 

“Thank you,” Sansa mumbled. She felt a cold wash over her and she scooted closer to the fire. She felt her throat close up and she hoped they’d think of something else to talk about. She watched the flames of the fire twirl around each other and after a few moments Sam and Gilly’s voices filled the air and she let them float all around her. She could feel Jon looking at her still, but she stared straight ahead, watched as the fire danced around until they broke through. 

“I’m beat,” Sam said, brushing his hands on the tops of his pants. “I think it’s time for me to head in.” 

Gilly nodded, standing up with him. 

“Night Jon,” she said. “Good to meet you, Sansa. You’ll hike with us tomorrow right?”

Sansa smiled up at her, quickly darting her eyes over to Jon and back again. 

“Yes,” she said. “Sure, of course. Thank you.” 

Their footsteps crunched against the branches below them until she heard the zip of their tent. Then only the sound of the crackling fire filled the air around her. 

“Sansa,” Jon said. She glanced over at him, his eyes wide and shining. “I’m so--so sorry.” 

She shook her head. She wasn’t going to cry. If she hadn’t cried standing at the foot of his grave with her family all around her, she certainly wasn’t going to cry in the middle of Maine’s godforsaken woods, a near stranger staring back at her. 

“I didn’t know if you’d heard,” she said, weakly. “But I guess you’ve been fairly off the grid the last few years.”

“Yeah,” he nodded. He broke away, staring down at his hands in his lap. “I hadn’t heard.” 

“I’m sorry,” she said, but she wasn’t quite sure why. He met her eyes, a small sad smile playing at the corners of his lips. 

“I hadn’t talked to Robb in a long time,” he admitted. _Me neither,_ she thought, but it was different. He shifted around a little, clearing his throat. He bent over and dug through his pack a bit before glancing back up at her. “I think I’m going to turn in too,” he said. 

He reached his hand across, a small jar outstretched for her to take. 

“Gilly’s recipe,” he said, nodding at her feet. “For the blisters.” 

“Oh,” she said, grabbing it. “Thank you.”

He stood up, his hand squeezing her shoulder as he walked by her. 

“Night, Sansa,” he said. 

“Goodnight, Jon.” 

_***_

_Dear Arya,_

_You were right. Nothing is different. Robb isn’t here. And when I go home he isn’t going to be there. I don’t feel him in the air that billows around the trees or in the dirt that dusts the path. Maybe I wouldn’t even know if I did. You were right about that too--I didn’t even really know him._

_And I still hate bugs._

_I’m in the middle of the hundred mile wilderness now. No resupply posts until I get out of it, so I won’t be able to send this letter for a while. Maybe I’ll have found Robb by then. Probably not._

_Do you remember Jon? You were littler than I was the last time I saw him, but you always played with him and Robb and Theon. I’m not sure how many years it’s been._

_I’ve run into him on the trail. He’s with a few of his friends. They’ve been hiking around the country for years. I thought maybe that’s where Robb had gotten the idea, but Jon said he hasn’t talked to him in a long time._ Hadn’t _talked to him in a long time._

_Anyway, I started hiking with them. With Jon and his friends. Sam and Gilly, their names are. It’s probably good I ran into someone. I’m not sure I would have made it through Maine alone. Apparently it’s the hardest state to get through._

_Wish I had known that before I started. Maybe I wouldn’t have come to this foolish place at all. I’ll probably see you soon, who knows how long I’ll last out here._

_I miss you. I wish you were here. I love you._

_Sansa._

***

Sam was a talker. 

Sansa had read that Maine had some of the wildest life on the trail--moose and loons and things like that. But they hadn’t seen so much as a blue bird. He talked about everything. The songs in his head, the last book he read, funny shaped trees on the trail. 

And Gilly, if possible, talked even more. 

“You just graduated, right?” she asked Sansa. “I didn’t get to go to college. Weren’t any I could afford. Worked as a waitress for a while though, right near the college. That’s where I met these two.” 

Only Jon was quiet. Piping in now and again to crack a joke at Sam’s expense. Clarifying something for Sansa--some in-jokes she wouldn’t get, slowing down the stories Sam and Gilly fired off one after another. Connecting the dots for her. 

He didn’t talk much even when she tried to start a conversation. 

“You met at school?” she asked him, nodding her head toward Sam, a few feet ahead of them. SAm and Gilly always seemed to be scuttling ahead, stopping and starting to wait up for them, shouting back to them when any particular thought struck their head, leaving the two of them lagging behind. 

Jon nodded. 

“We were roommates, freshman year.” 

“What did you study?” 

He shrugged. “Not much of anything, really. Left after my first year.” 

And over and over it went. She wondered if maybe she was mistaken. Maybe this wasn’t the boy who ran around her yard with her brothers, chasing Arya, pretending to sword fight. Maybe this really was a stranger with the ghost of a familiar face that she’d projected him onto.

 _Maybe,_ she thought, _if you’re playing pretend. Maybe you’re not on the trail at all. Maybe Robb’s not really dead._

But then she’d feel the blisters ache in her shoes and she’d know it was all very real. 

***

“What did you go to school for, then?” Gilly asked her. They were around a fire, just another days walk until they were out of the hundred mile wilderness. 

“Hospitality management,” Sansa said. 

“What’s that?

“Hotel management,” Jon cut in before she answered. He glanced up at Sansa. “Right?”

She nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.” 

“You’re going to run hotels?” Gilly asked, sounding impressed. She had a sweetness to her voice that Sansa couldn’t help but smile at. 

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I guess I probably should.”

“But you don’t want to,” Gilly carried on. 

Sansa shrugged. It was hard to explain. She didn’t hate the idea of it. But it didn’t fit anymore, not like it used to. Not when she jumped onto campus that first day four years ago. It was fine but it wasn’t quite right. 

“I liked school,” Sansa said. “I have fond memories of it, and of me when I was there. I just…” she trailed off. They waited, quiet, chewing slowly on their food, not rushing her to finish. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do now. I liked it, but it doesn’t feel quite right anymore.” 

She thought about moving back home, after all this. Back across the hall from Arya and Bran, down the stairs from Rickon and Robb’s empty room. She imagined walking down to get breakfast every morning to a quiet kitchen. An empty backyard that used to be full of people and noises. The hole she’d left in it had been squeezed out and filled over in the four years she’d been gone and she wasn’t sure she could get it back. 

“Well,” Sam said. Cheery and loud. “You’ve got quite a ways to figure that out anyway. No need fretting about it yet.” 

She imagined the stretch of miles ahead of her. She caught Jon’s eye and he lifted his bottle to her. 

***

“They’re sweet,” Sansa said, after Sam and Gilly had gone to sleep. 

“They’re the best people I’ve ever known,” Jon said, smiling. “Except maybe Robb.” His eyes flickered over to hers, carefully, wondering if he’d said the wrong thing. But she smiled back at him, and pretended she believed him. 

He took a long drink of water before he carried on. 

“There was a diner Sam and I used to go to all the time our freshman year in school,” he said. She settled in, smiling. She knew it would be about how the two of them met, but she didn’t care that she knew how it ended. She liked the guarantee of a happy ending. And she liked Sam and Gilly, she wanted to know how they met. 

“Sam was an absolute mess, the whole year. He’d never been away from home. And he was so excited about school that he took way too much on, both semesters. We’d bring our bags to the diner to study while we ate, eventually one meal rolling into another while his books took up all but where my plate and notebook sat.” He paused smiling. “Gilly wasn’t our waitress the first few times we went, but after awhile the other staff got annoyed with serving us so often, she was the only one who would take our table.” 

Sansa smiled at that, imagining Jon blushing the way he was then, sitting across from a frazzled Sam, meals piled up around them. 

“It took him the whole year to work up the nerve to ask her out,” he said. He shook his head a small laugh slipping past. “He waited until we ran into her somewhere else around town to finally get around to it. But she said yes, and somehow that means I’ve been stuck with the two of them ever since.” 

It seemed almost fake, a story so sweet. Like a fairytale. 

“Why’d you drop out of school?” she asked. 

Jon took a deep breath. “It’s...complicated.” She waited, wondering if he was going to go on, but he just shook his head and tore his eyes away from her. “Restless, I suppose. Nothing made sense in those buildings.” 

His voice was shielded, a little more shallow than before. A layer covered up and she wondered what it was he didn’t want to talk to her about. A dead brother like her or friend, or something even worse. She nodded, like she wasn’t curious at all and went back to nibbling on the dinner they’d made a while before. 

“One more day,” he broke the silence. “And we’re out of the hundred mile wilderness.”

Sansa sighed, relieved. 

“I’m ready,” she said. “I need to stop in to town to resupply.” 

Jon nodded. “There’s a few places in town we read about, that hikers like to stop in to. If you’re not in a rush to keep going, you can hang back with us for a day or so.”

She thought maybe she should say no. She should just pick up her supplies and keep moving. Cross the rest of the state off the list. Keep going on her own like she was supposed to. 

But she didn’t. She thought of stopping in and having a real bed to sleep in and a real meal to eat, and company for a little while longer. 

Jon watched her think it over, carefully, his eyes darting away any time she met them. So she nodded. 

“Yeah,” she said. “Sounds nice.” 

“If nothing else,” he said, shrugging. “At least we can get a proper shower.” 

Sansa laughed, her belly sore as it expanded, but it felt good. A smile crept onto Jon’s face as he watched her, slow and surprised, but there. He stood up, brushing his hands off on his legs as he and Sam always seemed to do, and walked over to her. His hand rested on top of her shoulder, squeezing it like he did every night she’d been with them, before he went to bed. 

“Night, Sansa.”

She sighed. 

“Goodnight, Jon.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen i know it's been 9 months but i can explain

Sansa was exhausted. And irritable. And it was made even worse by the fact that none of the others seemed to be as worn out as she was. 

And they were being far too  _ nice _ about. Slowing down for her. Distracting themselves with stories every time she got winded and needed a break. Sometimes Gilly even pretended to struggle at the same bits of trail where she would falter. 

It was infuriating. 

She wanted to snap at them, tell them to leave her alone and stop trying to make her feel better. She could catch up to them later she just wished they’d let her be. And then she’d be wracked with guilt when her huff of breath would slip out of her too harshly, making Sam’s smile falter of Jon’s hand waver. 

They were kind and thoughtful and she was buried under waves of inadequacy, self conscious about everything she did. Like the way Sam would always lend a hand when it was time to make camp because it still took her three times as long as everyone else to set up her tent. Or how no matter how tired she was she could never fall asleep with ease on the thin foam pad like the others could, and instead spent the night tossing and turning, longing for a real mattress without sticks and rocks and leaves crunching beneath her. 

She still blushed as she made her way off the trail to relieve herself, as she dug a hole and buried her own waste, though no one else batted an eye at it. She blushed at the way she still jerked away every time a fly or a mosquito flew up at her, even though it had happened often enough she ought to have been used to it. 

She was especially self conscious about her breathing, heavy and ragged while the rest of them barely made a peep. They’d even start talking louder as she got more out of breath, trying to distract her with how woefully unprepared she was. 

The rest of them lived without shame, sweat stains on their shirts not looking out of place, while Sansa couldn’t get over the red blotchiness of her skin. She felt too big for her body as she tripped and stumbled her way behind them, and she never wanted to shrink into herself more than when Jon turned around to flash her an encouraging smile. 

He took a softer sort of pity on her than Sam or Gilly. The two of them filled the space, talking loud enough she could barely hear her own thoughts, as if they knew there was nothing but trouble there. Jon, however tended to step carefully, slowly, as though she was meant to follow his steps exactly. Sometimes he walked behind her. Maybe, she suspected, to make sure she didn’t bolt off the trail, away from them. 

It had been a welcome change when they made it to Monson.

They took lodging at the Lakeshore House Restaurant and Lodge–the hiker rooms above the bar meant for fools just like them, either just leaving or resting before they entered the 100 mile wilderness. 

“You can bunk with me,” Gilly said as they checked in. “If that’s alright with you.”

Sansa felt a wave of guilt wash over her. “Oh,” she said looking between Gilly and where Sam stood with Jon a few feet away. “I don’t want to split you two up or anything…” 

She trailed off a little as she spoke. She was mostly just being polite. She  _ did _ feel awkward about separating Sam and Gilly, but she’d rather share with Gilly than anyone else. Especially Jon. She wasn’t sure why the thought popped into her head but her neck grew hot as she realized he was looking over at them, and she quickly turned back to Gilly, shaking the thought out of her head. 

“Don’t be silly,” Gilly said. “It’ll be fun. Like a slumber party.” She said it like it was new exciting, like they hadn’t been sleeping within an arm's reach of each other's tents every night already. 

“Okay,” Sansa said, with a small smile. “Thank you, Gilly.” 

 

* * *

 

Somehow the walk up to their room, her pack like a bag of stones on her back, felt harder than any stretch of the trail they’d trekked through so far. 

“You can shower first,” Gilly said as their bags crashed against the floor. “If you want.”

“Thanks,” Sansa said. She was sure if she sat down on the bed before washing all the dirt and grime off of her, she would never get up again. She’d melt into the fresh sheets and there’d be nothing but a pile of mud and insect bites left when anyone came looking for her. 

The hot water couldn’t beat the exhaustion out of her, but she stood slumped up against the wall as it scraped the dirt off of her back. She didn’t want to waste the hot water so she only lingered a few moments once she was truly clean, finding it hard to step out from under the stream. 

She’d barely pulled her towel wrapped body off the bed when she heard the water from Gilly’s shower shut off, and she shuffled to find her cleanest set of clothes. She opted for her black tank top because at least on that one there weren’t any visible stains. They’d be stopping at a post stop to get packages with new clothes and replenished food packs in the morning, but for the night her dirt covered rags would have to do. 

Jon and Sam we waiting at a table in the bar downstairs when she was dressed. They waved her over and she realized they’d already ordered a round of beers for the four of them even though they were still waiting for Gilly. She wondered how long they’d been waiting, their drinks seemed to be more than half done. 

“You look refreshed,” Sam said, smiling as she slid in the chair across from Jon. 

“As much as I can be,” she said, taking a sip of the drink in front of her. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth as she swallowed and she looked away, across the cluttered room. She didn’t really like the taste of beer. It had never grown on her, but she didn’t want to complain when someone else had bought the drinks. 

“Gilly coming down soon?” Sam asked her. 

Sansa shrugged. “I left just as her shower was finishing up.” She took another sip. Across from her Jon seemed to be biting the inside of his cheek, like he was fighting a smile. 

“I’m just gonna go,” Sam stood up, clumsily backing his chair up. “Check on her.” 

Sansa smirked into her glass, happy she’d come down to the bar before Gilly. They never complained but she was sure Sam and Gilly missed their privacy. She wondered what it was like for Jon before she joined them, always a small degree of separation between the intimacy of him and his friends. 

“You don’t have to drink it.” Jon’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. He wasn’t trying to hide his smirk any longer, leaning across the table toward her over his folded arms. 

She felt her cheeks warm and ducked her head. 

“It’s fine,” she said. 

Jon tipped his glass back and finished off his own drink. His hand reached across the small wooden table and wrapped around her own glass, sliding it to his side. He took a quick sip of it before standing up. “C’mon,” he said, head tipping toward the bar. “Get you something you like.” 

She felt silly walking up with him. Like he was her babysitter, making sure she didn’t get lost, though there was only one other group of people in the room. It was still early enough that the dinner rush wasn’t crowding the place, so the room was quiet. A soft stream of music played in the background just loud enough that it wasn’t eerily quiet in the bar, but not so loud that you had to shout to hear whoever you were talking too. 

Sansa couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone to a bar casually. Her friends didn’t drink socially. Not like this. Flashes of dimly lit frat parties flitted through her mind while she tried to think of a drink she liked enough to sit and sip it. 

“I’ll just get an iced tea,” she told Jon, who raised his eyebrows. 

“You sure?” 

She nodded, not quite meeting his eye. “Anything else will just put me to sleep,” she reasoned. 

“Alright,” he said, leaning across the bar to order for her. She reached into her pocket to grab some money, but Jon stopped her. “Don’t worry about it. You can grab another round later if you want.”

 

* * *

 

The bar got more crowded as the night went on, new customers shuffling in and filling the empty tables. Some sort of karaoke night was going on, with a few hikers but mainly locals hopping up to the mic to sing. 

Sansa felt herself relax when the lights dimmed a little and the air got louder. This, this was more of what she knew. Not trails or dirt or building fires. But buzzing rooms full of people she’d never met, laughing and shouting over one another whole their glasses clipped into each others. 

She wished, after a while that she’d gotten something stronger than tea to drink, if only to help her melt that final bit into her chair. They were several rounds in and Jon’s cheeks were pink with warmth, a few stray curls spilling out of the bun that secured his long hair at the back of his head. 

She’d been sitting back, letting the noise of the room press into her while the other three were caught up in conversation. The owner came by their table with another round of drinks at one point, on the house for first time AT hikers, she said. She introduced herself as Double Zero. 

“My trail name,” she’d explained when Sansa had raised her eyebrows. She’d pulled a chair away from another table and sat down at the end of theirs, resting her arms on top of the back of it, and Sansa found herself lost outside of the conversation again. 

She could feel Jon’s eyes on her. His head dipped toward her every now and again as though he was trying to catch her eye, pull her back into conversation. It was sweet, but a new wave of irritation stirred up in her the longer it went on. 

She wasn’t mad, but her fingers were tingling and she could feel her body too stiff on her chair and if Jon looked at her like that one more time she thought her eyes might burst out of her head. 

Her chair scraped loudly as she stood up, excusing herself to the bathroom. 

It would be better, she reasoned, to wait it out. The weight of Jon’s guilt slamming into her every time he noticed she wasn’t talking left her feeling awkward and exposed. Like she was never supposed to be there, but now she was stuck. 

For a small moment she let herself wonder if he’d have continued hiking with her, if he’d have put so much effort into helping her, if Robb wasn’t dead. 

_ You wouldn’t be here _ , she reminded herself,  _ if Robb was alive _ . It didn’t put her at ease the way she thought it would.

She’d probably be somewhere just like it though. Not so far out of her way, not so rustic, and not filled with anyone like the people the Lakeshore was filled with. But someplace loud and busy. Some place like all the other places she’d spent nearly every weekend of her four years of school. The places she’d felt her phone buzzing, flashing Robb or Arya or Bran’s names, every time she ignored their calls. She’d reasoned it was too loud to answer, she’d never be able to hear them. But the number of times she actually got around to calling them back were few enough to count on one hand.

She’d give anything to be back in one of those bars. Surrounded by worse people she would happily walk out on now if Robb’s name flashed up at her from her phone.

The door to the bathroom creaked open and she swiped the back of her arm across her cheek as Gilly came in, a small, uneasy smile on her face. 

“You disappeared there for a bit,” she said. 

Sansa shrugged, opening her mouth to explain, but no rational explanation came out. 

“I understand if you want to be alone,” Gilly offered. “I thought you might want to be. Jon insisted I come check on you.” 

Sansa wished the floor would swallow her whole. 

“I think I’m overly tired,” Sansa said. “A little embarassed, maybe, because none of the rest of you seem to be.”

Gilly laughed and it was kind and warm and Sansa was grateful she was the one who has been sent in to check on her. 

“Oh we all are,” Gilly said. “We’re just better at hiding it.” 

Sansa smiled, wondering exactly how bad she was at hiding it. 

“You should have seen us on our first hike,” Gilly carried on. “Completely hopeless. Honestly, you’re doing much better than we did when we first started. And you started off on your own!”

Sansa wished it made her feel better. It should have, there was nothing about Gilly that would make Sansa doubt her sincerity. But her embarrassment was layered and persistent, and every time she convinced herself she was done with it, she’d find a reason to worry over some other small, stupid detail. But she let Gilly talk, let her carry on telling her what their first big hike was like, and she carried on pretending it made her feel better. 

Eventually, someone else had to come into the bathroom. Gilly hopped off where she sat on the sink, head tilted toward Sansa. 

“You want to go back?” 

Sansa thought for a moment before shaking her head. “You go ahead,” she told Gilly. “I think I might go out by the lake. Maybe dip my feet in for a bit.”

Gilly nodded, heading back out with a smile, and Sansa sighed. 

Someone in the back of the bar was singing a very out of tune rendition of  _ Stand By Me _ when she made her way through, until it was barely a mumble behind her as the door slammed shut with the breeze. 

 

* * *

 

She heard the footsteps coming up behind her as she stared out at the water. The moon rippled out across the lake, wobbling as she dipped her toe in and swirled it around. 

Jon plopped down next to her, scooting back so his feet dangled without dipping his shoes into the water. Silently he held out half of a sandwich to Sansa. 

She raised an eyebrow at it. 

“Thought you might be hungry,” Jon shrugged. 

“Oh,” Sansa said. She hadn’t thought about it, but just looking at the sandwich made her stomach rumble. “Thanks.” 

She nibbled on the end of it while Jon slid back to untie his boots, resting them behind where they sat. With the ends of his pants rolled up, he dropped his feet into the water beside her. 

“There’s a diner down the road, Shaw’s,” he said after a quiet moment. “Double Zero said all the hikers go there for breakfast.”

Sansa nodded. “Sounds fine.” 

She let the air settle around and between them. She realized, after a minute, that it might have been the only time, apart from the brief time in the bar earlier, that she had been alone with Jon. All their time on the trail, Sam and Gilly were just a few feet away. 

And she was never the one Jon would hang around with when they were kids. Robb, definitely. Arya, maybe. But never her. 

It didn’t use to bother her. Not much, she didn’t let it and she had other things to do anyway. But now she was trekking 2000 miles across the country with him. And even though she’d known him as a kid, she’d seen him run around her yard and swim in her pool, and he still seemed like as much of a stranger to her as Sam and Gilly. 

“You know,” Jon said. When Sansa looked over at him, there was small smile creeping into his cheeks. “If you had told me, even a few months ago that I would be running into  _ Sansa Stark _ on the Appalachian Trail, I never would have believed you.” 

She possibly should have been offended by that. She knew what he was really saying. That the Sansa he had known was shallow and preppy and nothing like him. But even though it was something she’d been thinking, something letting doubt sneak into her every step, she couldn’t help but laugh as she glanced over at him. He was smiling wide at her, his eyes crinkling softly at the sides. 

“You know,” she mimicked him. “If you told me a few months ago I’d be running into Jon Snow on the Appalachian Trail, I would never have believed you.” She smirked over at him. “For a number of reasons.” 

Jon barked out a laugh, leaning forward to rest his elbows on top of his knees. “Which part is stranger, me or the trail?” 

“You,” she said, laughing. “Definitely you.” 

She felt herself blushing under his gaze. His grey eyes were fixed on her, soft and open and she had to look away. After a moment, she heard him shift and clear his throat beside her. 

“Sansa,” he said quietly. She pulled her eyes back away from the water and found his own looking down at his hands, seriously. “I think,” he started, then stopped again. He stretched his left hand out, resting it softly on top of her own. “What you’re doing here, this hike for Robb...I think it’s really incredible.” 

Her neck felt white hot, and her hand melted against his calloused palm. 

“Thank you,” she said. Mainly because she wasn’t sure what else there was to say. She didn’t want to get into it, not then. She wanted to sit out by the lake and forget, for a moment who she was and why she was there. She wanted to sit there on the dock and pretend that Jon was there for her, not for Robb, that they were friends instead of whatever limbo they existed in now. 

“I mean,” he said, his tone a bit lighter. “The Sansa I know could never go this long without the internet. Or,” he leaned in pretending to sniff her shoulder, “deodorant.  _ You know _ there’s probably a drug store we can stop at before we hit the trail again if you want.” He wrinkled his nose, mocking her. 

“Shove off,” she said, pushing his shoulder. “Like you’re any better. Why’d you think I always walk upwind of you?” 

“Oh, is that why?” he said. He leaned in closer. She felt her breath catch a bit in her throat as the ripples of the water in front of them bent the light in waves over his face as he crept toward her. It was only at the last second that she saw his hands come up. 

“Don’t you dare, Jon–” 

Her hand came up to stop him but it was too late. He’d propped himself up on his knees and shoved her shoulder and in a moment she was splashing into the water below. 

“You absolute–” she sputtered coming back up, her legs kicking below her to keep her treading water. “ _ –bastard _ , Jon Snow.” 

Before he could say anything more she kicked up, grabbing at his arm and pulling him in next to her with a splash. 

“Can’t say I didn’t deserve that,” he said once he’d surfaced, pushing his long hair back out of his face. 

Sansa didn’t remember him smiling this much as a child. He was an oddly brooding child. It had been a comforting memory on the trail, when she was feeling sullen. She’d glance back and there would be Jon, just as she remembered him. Not quite scowling, not quite frowning, but not smiling either. 

Now she wasn’t sure what to do. His smiles were following her as she tread water. And she felt herself smiling back, flushing, and feeling silly about it. She shoved her hand forward to splash him, hoping it would cover her face. How odd Robb would find it, she thought. If he could see the two of them now. 

Her belly sank at the thought of Robb, her whole body clenching, feeling heavier. Feeling sick. Because here she was, on this trail for him. That’s what she’d told everyone. That’s what she’d told Arya. 

Arya who was probably home, shut in her room, while their mother and father dealt quietly with everything Robb had left behind. 

And there she was laughing and joking with Jon Snow. 

Her body ran cold as she swam over to the dock and pulled herself up. 

“I should go back,” she said, quietly without looking at Jon. She picked up her shoes and socks and tried to ring out her shirt as much as possible. 

“Sansa–” Jon started, but she was already walking down the dock, back toward the house. 

“I’ll see you in the morning,” she called back. She heard the splash as he pulled himself up and out of the water, the thud as he let himself fall against the wooden dock.

 

* * *

 

Sansa felt like a sweaty horse in summertime, black flies swarming all around her. They tickled her skin, along with the beads of sweat dripping down from her brow, and her neck, and back and ribs. Down from every part of her. She was soaked through from head to toe, her hair plastered to her forehead, and she felt silly for hoping her showered freshness would last longer. 

They were back on the trail, fresh food and clothes in her pack. She wished it made her feel fresh, but she felt only a renewed sort of tired anticipation. 

And she couldn’t tell any longer if the air around her was muggy and thick, or if she was just sweating so profusely that it was actually projecting moisture into the atmosphere around her. 

She ought to have been used to it. There was hardly a time when she wasn’t sweating. She’d wake up and pack her tent, sealing in the first small layer of sweat on her skin. They’d get walking and it would multiply. They’d cross streams or rivers, and the cool fresh water would wash it all away briefly, like a soft cold cloth wiping down her skin. 

She’d be cool for a moment and then her sweat would work it’s way under the river water still clinging to her and she’d have double layers of moisture. 

She was so surrounded by flies, enveloped in their buzzing, she couldn’t hear Gilly’s humming any longer. Her mind slipped in a way it hadn’t since she’d stopped hiking on her own. She wondered, not for the first time, what Robb would think if he could see if. Wondered if maybe he could see her, like he was looking down on her or some other silly thing she’d been taught her whole life. 

_ He’d be proud of you _ , Jon had told her a few days ago. At first it irked her, her stomach flipping at the thought that he knew something about Robb that she didn’t. 

But Jon didn’t know Robb better than her. Not really. Not anymore. Maybe when they were children, maybe even when they were first becoming teenagers. But Jon had fallen off the grid, and while Sansa may not have known Robb as well as she should have, she certainly knew him better than Jon. 

Perhaps Robb would be proud of her.  _ More likely _ , she thought,  _ he was looking down at her and laughing _ . 

She wondered when her mind started to sound so much like Arya. 

 

* * *

 

Back home, in her room surrounded by Robb’s guidebooks and hiking fear, Sansa had felt enormously clever when stuffing her pack,she decided to leave the walking poles out of it. She didn’t think she’d need the extra weight. And with a certainty of someone much more skilled in hiking, she’d crossed them off the list, proud of herself for her own cleverness. 

The shifting water in front of her, however, made her think she was the least clever girl on the planet. 

Most of the water crossings had been a bit tricky, gravity, currents and slick stones flirting with her already clumsy nature. But even Jon had stopped up short at this one. 

Sam and Gilly went first, walking slower than she’d ever seen them, which only sent a panicked thrill shooting down her spine. Gilly didn’t have poles either, but her balance was better than Sam’s. Jon was waiting beside Sansa, watching the other two cross. The water was moving faster than the other streams they’d crossed yet, knocking rocks aside under its weight. 

Sam and Gilly were slipping, though they let out a chuckle or a smile every time their foot lost hold of the rock below, as though that was meant to make Sansa feel better. 

“Come on,” Jon held his hand out to her. He stepped forward, his boot entering the water. She saw herself following him, slowly. “I’ll help you cross.” 

She was sure she would fall, crashing into the waves. It might be sort of nice, she thought, once the pain of the initial impact washed away. The ripples sliding over her, cooling her down from head to toe. It would be like stubbing her toe and falling to the ground to cradle it. She wouldn’t be comfortable, there would be a flash of heat and pain wherever she made contact, but there would be something pulling her down, keeping her there. Something appealing in letting herself fall and stay down, made new by the water lapping over her.  

Jon waited patiently in front of her, his hand outstretched. 

She felt the rocks trembling below her, as her feet slowly covered them. Jon was beside her, one hand in hers, one on her back steadying her. She tried to ignore the feel of his breath on her neck, but her steps wobbled and she started to wonder if the heat in her neck was from sweat or nerves. 

“This isn’t so terrible.” 

Her voice wavered, but she thought he might not notice over the rush of the water. She glanced back at him, the uptick of his lips closer than she thought they’d been. 

Only a moment later, the water crashed harshly against her ankle, knocking her off balance. She felt her armpit slam against Jon’s forearm as he looped it around to catch her before she slipped fully into the stream. Her ankle twisted painfully as she tried to steady herself and she hissed when her weight shifted back onto that side. They waited, shin deep in the water for a moment,. Her breath evened slowly. 

Jon waited for her nod before they started to cross again. 

“No,” he said softly. “Not so terrible.”

 

* * *

 

“There,” Sam said, as he finished wrapping up her ankle. “Just elevate it for a bit. Should be good as new in no time.”

They’d stopped shortly after Sansa had twisted her ankle. She tried to tell them it was nothing–the initial pain was worse, but as she went on it was just a minor twinge, but they wouldn’t hear of it. 

“We’re getting up near Moxie Bald,” Gilly had said, dropping her pack down. “Better to stop now and rest than to make it worse before a mountain.” 

She knew they were right. She just didn’t like to be the reason they all slowed down. She wasn’t even supposed to be with them in the first place. 

“No reason to fret,” Sam said. He and Jon had set up her tent, ordering her to rest her ankle for the night. He passed some food to her as he sat down beside her, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Truth be told I’d been ready to stop long before now. This is just a convenient excuse.” 

Jon sat across from her, eating his dinner quietly. He’d been much quieter since the night at the Lakeshore House and she felt a pang of guilt, knowing she’d caused it. 

She opened her mouth to say something to him, tease him perhaps, to see if he’d relinquish a smile. But he cleared his throat and stood up wiping his hand on his pants. 

“Gonna turn in early,” he said. He glanced at Sansa, looking away quickly when her eyes met his. “‘Night, everyone.”

The words fell out of her in a whisper. “‘Night, Jon.”

 

* * *

 

“How’s your ankle?” 

The voice behind her startled her. Sansa twisted back to see Jon shifting over from where he sat to scoot closer to her. 

“Oh,” she said, shrugging. “Really it’s fine. Felt fine by the time we made camp yesterday.” 

She ripped off a section of her granola bar, making slow work of chewing through it. They’d started the day hoping to cover more ground than the day before. But the climb up Moxie Bald had taken longer than they’d planned, and by the time they reached the peak, all Sansa had wanted to do was stop and stare out. 

It was breathtaking. She hadn’t noticed, not really, on Katahdin. Too weary and woeful and self pitying. She hadn’t really stopped to look out and see it. 

She was pretty sure if she looked out far enough she could see home. She could see the woods behind their house, where she and Arya would go. She could make out their pool. 

If she turned in the other direction she could look out and see her school, warm brick buildings baking in the summer sun. 

“That’s Katahdin,” Jon pointed to a peak in the distance. 

“I feel like I can see the whole world from here,” she said. She felt silly for saying it, silly for  _ thinking _ it and once the words were out her cheeks burned red. But a glance to her right and Gilly and Sam and Jon all had soft, understanding smiles looking right back at her. 

“You know what this reminds me of?” Sam broke the silence a few moments later. “That trip with Ygritte, right at the end of our freshman year. Where was that again?”

He trailed off, muttering to himself, trying to remember. 

“Who’s Ygritte?” Sansa asked Jon. 

But he’d stood already, shoving his remaining food into his pack, pulling it onto his back. 

“No one,” he grunted. “Come on. Let’s get a move on before we lose the daylight.” 

“Ah,” Sansa said, understanding. “She’s an ex isn’t she?” 

There was a peculiar flip in her stomach as she said it. Ignoring it, she zipped up her own pack, trying to catch his eye. She’d had enough bad exes to tell. 

Sam and Gilly stood silent and frozen behind her. 

“From the looks of it, not a very pleasant memory.” She couldn’t shut her voice off. She could feel the air growing awkward and stale around her, but she wanted Jon to look back at her. She felt herself needling him, poking at him. Maybe trying to get him to admit some sort of weakness so she wasn’t the only one with open wounds on this godforsaken trip. Maye trying to beat out a girl who didn’t matter anymore. She wasn’t even sure. 

“She and my exes could swap notes,” she joked, knocking her shoulder into his.

“It wasn’t like that,” he spat. Sansa stepped back, surprised. At the clench in his jaw and the bite in his words. The way he seemed to know exactly what  _ like that _ was with her, without her having said anything. The way he didn’t think it important enough to ask.  “Stop talking about things you know nothing about.” 

He pushed forward, not waiting for the rest of them to follow. After a moment, Sam shuffled to get his pack on, calling after Jon down the trail. Sansa felt Gilly come up next to her, a power bar held out like a peace offering. 

“Give ‘em a few minutes head start, yeah?”

 

* * *

 

It was Sam who came up to her later to apologize. 

“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” he said, a guilty, nervous smile on his face. “Especially not with how he’s been lately.”

Sansa pulled her knees into her chest, wrapping her arms around them. 

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean. Well it’s just–” She smiled, watching him as he struggled to pick out exactly what it was he wanted to say. “I just, I think you make him nervous.”

A thousand questions flew around her head at that. Like  _ what _ ? And  _ why _ ? And  _ how _ ? But Sam was looking away, focusing on Jon’s tent, like he was trying to figure out exactly how much of his friend’s business he was going to give away. 

“Ygritte was his girlfriend,” he started to explain. She felt a small sense of vindication that her instincts had been right about that, at least. “They got together right at the end of our freshman year of college. And then well…” Sam trailed off, weighing his words. “Things got bad after that. She put him through all sorts of things he should never have had to deal with.”

Sansa’s gaze followed Sam’s to where Jon’s tent sat a few yards away. 

“I think he’s still dealing with it all,” Sam admitted. 

That, at least, she could understand. She nodded, unsure what else there was to say, and waited for Sam leave her alone with whatever she was supposed to think about it all. It was hard to parse through it, to figure out what Sam was trying to say to her. 

When he didn’t, she stood up uncomfortably. 

“Right,” she said quickly. “I think I’m just going to go to sleep now.”

* * *

 

_ Dear Arya,  _

_ You know what’s stupider than hiking? _

_ Hiking for 2000 miles straight. Feel free to say I told you so when I get home. If a bear hasn’t eaten me by then.  _

_ Love you. Miss you. Wish you were here,  _

_ Sansa _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it probably won't take me 9 months to post the next chapter but feedback is always excellent motivation

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first time writing jon x sansa so please let me know what you think! and pop by on tumblr (ofhobbitsandwomen) i'm always down to chat


End file.
